February 23rd, 2007

SPC Risk: MODERATE - VERIFICATION
Chasers: (Dean S, Reed T, Joel T, Matt C)
Target: Elk City, OK to Quail/Memphis, TX area
Miles Logged: 479
Largest Hail: Golfball
Tornadoes: N/A


Synopsis/Chase:
Left around 10am for Elk City, OK where we stopped at Joels parents place for amazing brisket and potatoe salad. The best potatoe salad I've ever had! Reed snapped pics, but those will likely be posted on tornadovideos.net. We monitored data for about an hour, then headed west towards Shamrock, TX as the first storms fired to our SW in Donley County. Initial storms were a little messy, but two cells became decent supercells near Clarendon and also near Quail, TX. Both produced brief tornadoes, but enroute to the Quail storm we missed the twister near Clarendon by minutes while arriving in Quail seconds after the tornado lifted. Encountered golfball hail 1N of Quail and nearly got hit by a CG around same time. Thats about the extent of our chase. Lost daylight quick, so headed back to I40 to head home.

Our Texas storms moved to the OK/TX border and eventually weakened after encountering progressively cooler and more stable air. Although stronger lift and wind fields would overpsread the eastern texas panhandle and western oklahoma after dark, lack of decent moisture, insolation and thus instability precluded any organized severe weather event. As is normally the case for first of the season severe weather events, SPC made a bold forecast of strong tornado potential and widespread severe wind and hail events in a moderate risk area that covered mainly western oklahoma. In the end, with the expception of one severe wind and a few severe hail reports from the decaying texas storms crossing the border, western oklahoma was totally void of any additonal reports when main storm dynamics overspread the area. Simple case of BAD TIMING here. Best dynamics arrived well after dark when the BL was stable and never received needed insolation during daylight due to widespread low clouds and light showers. Only a narrow axis of instability formed in the eastern texas panhandle for a short window of time which lead to the two brief tornadoes described earlier. Very diluted experience overall, but can't complain as much as I normally would being the first chase of the season. I was happy to see lightning and hear thunder... period!

Initiation

Reed tests new D200

Godly, but just storms

Radar of Clarendon storm and others

Storm near Clarendon before going tornadic

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